antimalware

As far as reputations go, ESET's NOD32 is practically unimpeachable. Version 4 of the popular and effective antivirus and antispyware builds on that rep, emphasizing its community-sourced ThreatSense for preventing attacks before they occur, a slick interface, and some of the highest independently-tested detection rates married to low rates of false positives.

Installation is clean and straightforward. Greatly improved from its humble beginnings as separate scanners that once littered the desktop, NOD32 can be toggled between standard features and more advanced options. Scans were neither blazingly fast nor excruciatingly slow, but the real-time defenses produced no noticeable drags on … Read more

ESET's Smart Security takes the structure built by their popular antivirus program NOD32 and adds on two wings: a personal firewall and a spam filter. Because much of Smart Security is the same as NOD32, this review will focus only on the firewall and spam filter.

The firewall's advanced settings are Smart Security's strength. Users can extensively customize the firewall's behavior, but don't have to. There are five default settings: automatic, automatic with user-defined exceptions, interactive, policy-based, and learning. You can set safe zones, configure remote desktop access, and manage intrusion detection, all from an … Read more

Last week, BleepingComputer.com reported on how to remove a new variant of an old scareware. This new nasty, known most commonly as Antivirus2010 or Anti-Virus-1, points you to spoofed versions of Download.com, ZDNet, PCMag.com, and other software sites, demanding that you download their program to clean your computer. Of course, it does nothing of the sort, merely perpetuating the infection.

However, the manner and methods Anti-Virus-1 uses to get you there are extremely clever. The infection part of the malware does whatever it's been designed to do, so you can see that you've been infected … Read more

A-Squared Free 4 is one of the better free malware removers, but it's not flawless and some users question its efficacy.

The program starts off with a sluggish detection file update that also requires a program restart. This took about 10 minutes. Normally, though, it opens to the Security Status page. From there, you can run scans, update the program, access the A-Squared knowledge base, and choose from among 20 display languages. Program options are arranged on the left nav, and they are Security Status, Scan PC, Quarantine, Logs, and Configuration tabs. Scan PC contains four scanning options: Quick, … Read more

Easy on your RAM and able to complete a Quick Scan in around 8 minutes, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware wouldn't be as impressive if it didn't do its job well. Fortunately, it does.

The app has some nice features, too. It supports multiple- and networked-drive scanning, context menu options, including a scan-on-demand for individual files, and a FileAssassin for killing locked files.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a surprisingly effective freeware antimalware tool. It's a relatively speedy malware remover, with the quick scan taking about 8 minutes even with other high-resource programs running. The heuristics engine proved on multiple computers during empirical testing that it was capable of determining the difference between false positives and dangerous apps.

The app has some nice features rolled in, too. It supports multiple drive scanning including networked drives, context menu options including a scan-on-demand for individual files, and the FileAssassin option under the More Tools section for removing locked files. The interface is simple, but pleasant-looking and … Read more

A new report (PDF) from Secunia is raising awareness about the need to patch vulnerabilities and block malware from desktops.

The report found that "security vendors do not focus on vulnerabilities." And while Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009 bests the 11 other suites tested, Secunia found that Symantec "detected a mere 64 out of 300 exploits, or less than one-fourth, leaving 236 exploits undetected." Overall the dozen products all received an "F" on the report.

The Secunia test departed from the traditional testing done by organizations such as AV-test.org and AV-comparatives.org, which … Read more

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a surprisingly effective antimalware tool. And, for what it's worth, it's mighty popular. It's a relatively speedy malware remover, with the quick scan taking about 10 minutes. The heuristics engine proved on multiple computers during empirical testing that it was capable of determining the difference between false positives and dangerous apps.

The app has some nice features rolled in, too. It supports multiple drive scanning, context menu options including a scan-on-demand for individual files, and the FileAssassin option under the More Tools section for removing locked files. This can help remove malware files that … Read more

I just took a look at Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and it's a worthwhile security application. Some users and reviewers even think it's the best free malicious-software-only engine out there, and it's true that it has a lot going for it.

Surprisingly effective, it's a relatively speedy malicious software remover, with the quick scan taking about 10 minutes. The heuristics engine proved on multiple computers during empirical testing that it was capable of determining the difference between false positives and threatening dangers.

Notably, Malwarebytes was one of the few malicious software removal tools that proved useful to many … Read more